Peace in the Storm
Author: Pastor Heidi Eickstadt (from Sermon on 11/14/21)
As many of you know, I have a son named Alexander who was born 16 months ago this past Thursday. I had always imagined that I would have my mother-in-law there in delivery, my brother and sisters in the waiting room, and a doula along with my husband by my side, helping me breathe as I labored through the pain.
But due to COVID, my family, who are in the Midwest, and Ike’s mom, who’s in Spokane, Washington, weren’t able to travel out here. Doulas weren’t allowed in the hospital yet so my plans and hopes for what childbirth would look like had to be changed pretty quickly.
Then Alexander decided to come three weeks early, waking me up in the middle of a Friday night as my water broke. Funny thing was, Ike and I were just talking the night before about putting together our hospital bag the next day. I was also supposed to preach my last Sunday at my interim congregation that weekend so I had to quickly scramble to make alternate arrangements from the delivery room.
Then I found out that the doctor coming on call later that day would be the one doctor in the practice that I hadn’t had a good experience with…of course. So, needless to say, I was experiencing a lot of upheaval, change and uncertainty as my labor progressed and the pain and contractions intensified. I knew that the pain would not last forever but it sure felt like it! It was difficult in the midst of it all to trust that everything was going to be ok.
Not all of us have experienced childbirth but all of us have been through a time of upheaval, change and uncertainty in our lives. We’ve all wondered if we were going to be ok, if the pain was ever going to stop, especially when things feel out of our control. We’ve all had that moment where we feel like U2 when they sing, “Yahweh, Yahweh, always pain before the child is born…Yahweh, Yahweh, why the dark before the dawn?”
For a lot of us, this time of pandemic has been such a time, as we long for a return to “normal” and grieve the time we have lost with family and friends, the plans we had made but had to cancel. For some of us, we grieve the loss of those who’ve died of COVID and for a lot of us, we grieve the certainty we once felt about our world and our future.
In these times of tumult, we often cling to what makes us feel secure or in control: money, our jobs, a position of authority or power in our families or communities. Some of us turn to nostalgia, wanting things to be the way they were in the past, imagining that if we go back to the things were, we’ll be happy again.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the disciples marveling over the massive temple in Jerusalem and the gigantic slabs of stone that make up its foundation. They are admiring the power and majesty of the temple, this holy space that is a symbol of God’s majesty and presence with the Jewish people.
The temple was being rebuilt at this time and many must have felt a sense of pride and hope in seeing the Temple of Solomon rise once more. It surely must be a sign that the throne of David would be restored soon and the Jewish people would revive their glorious past.
However, Jesus scoffs at how enamored they are with the temple, telling them that the temple and all these impressive buildings will be thrown down and destroyed. It is a hard pill for the disciples to swallow, what do you mean Jesus? This symbol of our God, our identity and our people will be destroyed? What will happen to us? How will we survive without this holy place to gather?
Jesus answers them by saying to trust in God in the midst of the chaos. Pain, suffering and upheaval will come but do not abandon hope in God…hope that God is working despite all the brokenness to make all things new.
But easier said than done, right? Life has wired us to make us think about all we can do, not what God can do. We measure our worth, our lives, our faith in terms of what we’ve accomplished, we’ve done, the temples we’ve built.
But the letter to the Hebrews and Mark’s Gospel teach us that following Jesus isn’t about praying, or giving, or memorizing enough scripture to achieve a black-belt in holiness. Those things, praying, giving, scripture, they are all wonderful things but they aren’t ends in themselves. Instead they are simply channels, channels for receiving God and trusting in God, channels for growing in relationship with God, not about unlocking higher levels of our own perfection or earning more of God’s love.
As Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber says: “God’s grace is a gift that’s freely given we don’t earn it we just try and live in response to it…nobody is climbing the spiritual ladder…we aren’t like continually self-improving like Tide detergent right, nobody’s just getting better and better and better and better and better but instead god always comes to us and makes us new and then makes us new again and then makes us new again and it’s called death and resurrection and that the relationship we have to God the movements always this way. God’s always coming to us, we don’t make our way to God.”
In the waters of baptism, God makes God’s way to us no matter who we are and what we’ve done or not done. Baptizing an infant reminds us that there’s no way we can believe it’s because of our own decision or works that God is naming and claiming us with God’s grace. It’s God meeting us where we are, it’s all gift to be received and to pass along towards friend and foe, family and stranger, all not deserving but equally beloved by God.
Grace and salvation is leaning on God and not ourselves, receiving the gift of love and grace and letting that love and grace flow through us. Day by day, we are invited to die to the ways that disconnect us from each other, our true selves and from God, not to unlock greater holiness but be freed to live the gift of God’s grace.
Day by day, God washes us anew in the waters of baptism to live more and more into the resurrection life, the life of connectedness and wholeness within ourselves, with God and with each other. We are invited into a resurrection life where, instead of turning to the temples of status, wealth, job or nostalgia for peace and happiness, we turn to God and God’s way of love, grace and hope.
In these tumultuous times, may we trust in God as we process our loss, upheaval, grief and pain. May we trust that God is present with us, working to make all things new.
Let’s take time to listen and notice the signs of hope and God’s presence in the world and people around us: the beauty of the sunset, the vibrant colors of the leaves falling to the ground, the sound of children laughing in our neighborhood, the song of the birds outside our window.
May we notice God’s presence in the midst of the storm, in the call from a friend to check-in, the person who has grace with us when we are running late and can’t seem to get it together, the husband like mine who, not a doula, held my hand, never left my side and never stopped consoling me and cheering me on.
May we trust that God is bringing about the birth of a new world that, like in childbirth, contains enough beauty and joy that it eclipses all that has happened before. And may we trust God’s invitation to participate in the resurrection life here and now, letting God flow through us, receiving and sharing in our lives a glimpse of the Kingdom come where thy will is done. Thanks be to God. Amen.